This Case Is Gonna Kill Me Read online

  Washington gave me a strange look. I pressed a hand to my forehead as if I could squeeze out the headache that was forming behind my eyes and push back the dumbass remarks that fluttered on my tongue like maddened butterflies.

  “I’m sorry,” I mumbled. “I don’t mean to be flippant, but that may be the only thing that’s keeping me from retreating into gibbering hysteria.”

  “That’s okay,” he said again. “People deal with stress in different ways. There is no right way. Now, do you think the wolf was after you, or Mr. Westin?”

  “I’m not sure. I think Chip.”

  Washington stood. “I better get downstairs and see what Forensics has for me,” he said to Shade.

  But something in our exchange finally jump-started my traumatized brain cells. “Wait,” I called before he reached the door. Washington looked back. “The big case we’re working on involves werewolves.”

  “What kind of case?” Washington asked.

  A page in The Code of Professional Responsibility concerning lawyer/client confidentiality came floating past my mind’s eye. I had probably said too much already, but what the hell, in for a penny, in for a pound. “It’s an estate dispute between our clients and Securitech.” I figured he would have heard of Securitech. A lot of cops and military went to work for them after they retired.

  I was right, because Washington gave a soundless whistle and wrote it down. The policeman left. I looked up at Shade. He was frowning at me.

  “You shouldn’t have mentioned the case.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. But the filings are public record, and it’s been going on almost as long as I’ve been alive. And it doesn’t seem to be high on the priorities list with Ishmael, McGillary and Gold. And Chip’s been murdered, which I think should reset the table.”

  “You’ve pulled Securitech into a police investigation. Someone will leak it to the press, and Gunther, Piedmont, Spann and Engelberg will accuse us of dragging Securitech into a sordid murder purely in an attempt to damage their client’s reputation with the arbitrator.”

  “Shade, don’t you care that Chip’s been killed?”

  “Of course—”

  But before he could say more there was a preemptory knock. Without a pause the door opened. A gaggle of partners trooped in, led by Gold with McGillary a step behind. The lesser partners marched behind like mourners at a New Orleans funeral. Ryan was among them, and he gave me an encouraging smile.

  Gold strode up to me. Shade again laid his hand on my shoulder, and he and Gold glared at each other. I was between them, and as the tension sparked I felt like a small, squeaking rodent trapped between mastodons.

  Gold loomed over me. “What do you know about this?” He had curly black hair, intense black eyes, and a powerful build, and if he hadn’t been dead his face would probably have been brick red.

  Shade interposed himself between us, and his tall, lean form seemed fragile next to Gold’s bulk, but there was nothing timid in his expression. McGillary, hovering on the outskirts of the confrontation, looked like he wished he were invisible, which would be tough given his carrot-colored red hair.

  “Leave her be,” Shade said.

  “I demand an answer,” was Gold’s response. “Chip worked here for twenty-eight years. Then she arrives, and this happens.”

  “No way are you blaming this on me,” I shot back. I was still shaky, but this amount of ’tude after what I’d been through was starting to piss me off. “I just graduated in May, and while Yale is cutthroat, it doesn’t usually produce enemies who want to kill you!” I realized I had stood up, and was shouting at him. Gold blinked at me and actually took a step back. I raged on.

  “No, that wolf had to be after Chip. If I hadn’t run out of the kitchen when I heard Chip scream, he might not have known I was there. I could have just hidden until it was all over. And it has to be about one of his cases, because I’m pretty damn sure a werewolf didn’t attack him because of his kid’s soccer games, or because he and his wife liked to play bingo at church on Wednesday nights. And … and Chip didn’t deserve to die like that.” And suddenly I was wailing like a lost five-year-old.

  It struck me that I had transitioned from raging harridan to sniveling child in the space of about three seconds. They probably thought I was certifiable. Way to go, Ellery. Way to impress your bosses. My knees turned to rubber and I sat back down. And suddenly I was horribly aware that I had vampires on three sides of me, and I couldn’t retreat because I was trapped in a chair.

  “She has the right of it,” I heard Shade say as if from a great distance. “Chip was my súbdito de casa. I will see justice done.”

  My mind provided the translation. Subject or servant of the house. And in that moment I had a total understanding of the relationship between the vampires and the humans. Despite having been fostered in a vampire household where I felt like I belonged, I was hit with the disheartening thought that Mr. Bainbridge probably described me that way to his guests. “Yes, Linnet is a delightful little thing. My súbdita de casa.”

  “We need to discuss how to handle this,” Gold said, and then the three partners were gone, and I began to cry again. Mostly for Chip, but some of the tears were for me. Someone laid a hand on my shoulder. I squeaked, jumped, and looked around. Ryan was standing next to my chair.

  “Let me take you home,” he said softly.

  “I can take a cab—”

  “No.” He got a hand under my arm, and helped me to my feet. We made our way slowly toward the door. “And for what it’s worth … I think you’re absolutely right. It had to be something Chip was working on.” He paused and looked down at me. “Don’t you dare come in tomorrow…” He broke off and checked his watch. “Today. You stay home and get some rest.”

  We rode down the elevator and stepped out into the lobby. It had become a crime scene too. Yellow tape blocked the door. There was a lot of blood behind the security officer’s desk, and a few random splashes on the marble walls. There was no security guard present. Just a black body bag with a human-sized bump. Evidence techs, dressed in white jumpsuits with booties covering their shoes, were taking swabs and samples. One of them lifted the tape to allow us out of the elevator and guided us around the edge of the lobby, where there was no blood.

  We stepped through the front doors, and an explosion of light struck my tear-sore eyes. Light glinted off the lenses of television cameras, transforming them into cyclopean monsters. The fourth estate had arrived; in force and with a vengeance.

  “Who died?”

  “Was it a werewolf?”

  “Was it a vampire ritual?”

  “How did you survive?”

  “I hear you killed the attacker.”

  “How?”

  Ryan put his arm around my shoulders and stiff-armed the ravening hoard.

  “Ow!”

  “Jesus Christ, guy!”

  “Back off!” Ryan roared, and such is the power of the vampire that they obeyed.

  A limo was idling curbside. A driver jumped out and yanked open the back door. I tumbled in, my entrance speeded along with a boost from Ryan. The door fell shut with a heavy clunk, cutting off the hysterically shouted questions. The car shot away, merging quickly into the flow of traffic on Park Avenue. I yanked my blouse back up onto my shoulder.

  Ryan took my hand and stroked the back of it like a man gentling a terrified horse. “Sorry about that. If I’d known they’d already arrived, I would have taken you out the back way.”

  “It’s okay.” Exhaustion dragged at my muscles, and it felt like my bones had disappeared. “I’m going to get blood in your nice car.”

  “Don’t worry about that. Stephenson will clean it. Let’s just get you home. What’s your address?”

  I gave it, and the driver turned past Columbus Circle so he could get on the right side of the park, then headed uptown.

  “Your condo is closer, sir,” the driver called back.

  Ryan cocked a questioning eyebrow at me. “What
do you say? You want to go to my place?”

  I shook my head. “I really just want to be alone.”

  Ryan backed off immediately. “I understand. Let’s just make sure there’s nobody waiting at your place.”

  The thought chilled me, and I almost reconsidered his offer. But I had no clothes, and I wanted to throw away the ones I was wearing.

  “Would you check the place for me? In case it was about me and not Chip,” I quavered.

  “Of course.”

  At three thirty a.m. there wasn’t much traffic—for New York. We reached my building in fifteen minutes. The driver unlimbered a tire iron from the trunk, and we all rode up in the elevator.

  Ryan and Stephenson checked all three rooms and the closet while I waited in the hall. There were no werewolves lurking.

  After they left, I jammed every stitch of clothing I had been wearing into a garbage bag. Wrapped in a robe with slippers on my sore feet, I padded down the hall to the garbage chute. Returning to my apartment, I filled the old claw-footed tub to the rim with the hottest water I could stand and crawled in. But I still smelled Chip’s blood even after I’d washed my hair three times and frenziedly scrubbed my body with a loofah. When my toes and the tips of my fingers looked like pink, wrinkled raisins, I finally got out. Just before I climbed into bed, I called my dad, but he didn’t answer.

  My dreams were filled with blood.

  4

  I slept into the afternoon and woke up feeling like I hadn’t slept at all. In addition to dreams about rivers and fountains of blood, I’d spent the night running—first from the werewolf and then from a Hunter. Unlike most dreams, these didn’t fade. I staggered into the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face. Thanks, Dad, for letting one of those faceless, slug-like creatures invade my psyche.

  The hairbrush caught in the snarls in my hair, formed by my desperate thrashing. Padding into the kitchen, I opened the fridge and immediately choked on bile. I closed it and retreated into the living room. It was probably time to turn the cell phone back on. I snagged it out of my purse and turned it on. It chimed, indicating new voice mail. I tapped on the phone icon and saw the number 36 floating over the voice mail icon.

  The phone rang even as I was staring at it. I almost answered, but I stopped myself when the caller ID read Inquirer. I let it ring. A few seconds later, the number of voice mails changed to thirty-seven. The phone rang again. New York Post.

  Hugging my robe tight around me, I started pacing. The phone kept ringing. I realized my feet hurt. I settled on the couch and studied my toes. They were bruised and swollen, and my baby toes had raw places where my shoes had rubbed off the skin. While I undertook the podiatry investigation, the phone rang another three times.

  “Stupid shoes,” I muttered. “All that money and the heel breaks—”

  Which took me right back to a vision of blood-smeared muzzle and red teeth as the werewolf leaped at me. I shuddered and tears burned my eyes. Snatching up the phone, I called my parents’ house. Still no answer. That could only mean Dad was on an airplane coming to me. That made me feel a little better, but I wanted to talk to somebody.

  I called Mom. She and my little brother were in Paris on Charlie’s Congratulations! You Graduated From High School trip.

  “Linnet, hello,” my mother’s odd intonations and emphasis on the wrong syllables came through the phone.

  “Mommy.” The word emerged thick and tear filled. “I’m okay.”

  “Well, why wouldn’t you be? My big grown-up girl with a job.”

  I wasn’t feeling teary any longer. I was remembering why my mother drove me crazy. “Didn’t Daddy call you?”

  “Yes, and called and called, but Charlie and I were exploring the flesh pots, and I didn’t want to be disturbed, so I didn’t answer.”

  I tried to figure out what “exploring the flesh pots” meant and then decided I didn’t really want to know.

  “Did something wonderful happen?” my mother trilled.

  “No, something horrib—”

  “Paris is wonderful, darling. You should have postponed starting work, and come with us.”

  “Mommy, listen!”

  “I am listening, dear. OH WAITER, ANOTHER CHAMPAGNE, si’l vous plait.”

  “My boss was murdered last night. I almost got killed.” I was shouting into the phone. This was always how things ended up between us. Why had I called?

  “Oh, my dear, how terrible for you. Let’s not dwell. We’ll talk of pleasant things. The new exhibit at the Louvre is wonderful.”

  “I don’t care about that!”

  “Linnet, really. What do you expect me to do? We can’t just pack up and come home. This is your brother’s graduation present. How selfish of you.”

  Charles Grantham Ellery. Little brother. Big pain. The beloved male heir. He had been born eight months before I was sent away to the Bainbridge house. In those first lonely weeks in the Sag Harbor house, I had wondered if my parents had given me away because now they had a boy. I was older now, and intellectually I knew that was silly, but that little girl deep inside me still felt like I was second best.

  “He’s going to be eighteen in three weeks,” I muttered resentfully. “He could manage on his own. In fact he’d probably be glad not to have his mother along.”

  “Which is precisely why I can’t leave,” my mother said in an odd moment of clarity. I had to admit she had a point. For the golden child, Charlie managed to fall into shit piles with astonishing regularity. “Oh, here, your brother wants to talk to you. Should we get a little tray of olives?”

  “What?” And then I realized she wasn’t talking to me.

  Charlie came on the line. “Hey, sis, what’s up? Are you once more a chaos magnet?” His cheerful voice crossing thousands of miles had me torn between wanting to cry and wanting to bite his head off—it wasn’t fair that he was having fun.

  The snark won out over family affection. Somebody needed to suffer as much as I was, and my mother was clueless. “Charlie, it wasn’t like that. I was so scared and it was so awful. He was literally torn apart. There was so much blood.” My voice started shaking and my words were thick with tears. What had started out as spite became an actual need for comfort.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa, what happened?”

  “My boss was killed. I was there. I saw it.”

  There was a long silence on the French end of the call, and my baby brother surprised me by saying in an astonishingly adult voice, “I think we should come home. I’ll tell Mom.”

  I was touched, and despite our rivalry I realized I loved this kid. “No, you stay. Finish the trip. I got my European trip after high school. You shouldn’t lose out on yours.”

  “All right, but if you change your mind…”

  “Believe me, I’ll tell you.”

  I toggled through the rest of the messages, erasing all the ones from the press. I listened to only two.

  The first was from Shade. “Linnet, I hope you’re recovering. The police will want to talk to you again after the holiday, and you must not mention any of our cases. Gold is on the warpath, threatening to fire you and report you to the ethics committee. Don’t worry, I’ll handle this, but please don’t make any more waves.”

  Don’t worry. Yeah, right. I was shaking again, chilled to my core.

  The second message was from Pete. “Hey, Linnet … wow. When you said things had come up at work, I thought you meant, like … well, work. This is weird, no offense, but I don’t think I can deal with this kind of thing in my life right now.”

  And now I really didn’t mind missing the date. I wondered if I might hear from Devon. If he was already in Dubai, he wouldn’t see the news unless someone sent a link to him. I wished he would call. I wished somebody who cared about me would call.

  I headed back to the bath and hot water.

  * * *

  After this second, long bath, I realized I was hungry. I didn’t want to be alone, so I called Ray. Gregory answered.
<
br />   “Hi, I was calling to see if you and Ray wanted to have late lunch or early dinner.”

  “Linnet, my God, are you all right? It’s all over the papers. My God.”

  “Papers?” I repeated dully.

  “Oh, honey, you sound wasted. I wish we could, but Ray’s doing a matinee.”

  “Oh,” I said, and felt my throat tighten again with unshed tears.

  “I’d offer my poor self as a substitute, but I have a date with my old professor, and I’ve got to catch the train out to Long Island.” He hesitated. “I could cancel.”

  “No, no. You go. I’ll be okay.”

  “Well, I don’t know how. You get yourself onto a couch, sweetie. I can give you the name of my therapist if you don’t have one.”

  “Thanks, Gregory, that’s really sweet. I’ll think about it.” And I hung up before I actually burst into tears. I tried Dad again. Again no answer.

  Gregory’s mention of the papers sent me to my computer. I brought up both the New York Times and the New York Post. The Times had the headline below the fold on the front page, and it was an appropriately gray statement of fact. MURDER AT LAW FIRM. I noted that the name of the deceased had not been made public pending “notification of next of kin.”

  The Post was less discreet. My picture was plastered across the front page. I was huddled against Ryan, and they had used a shot that showed a flash of bosom because my beautiful blouse had been pulled aside by Ryan’s arm, and the photographer was shooting from the side. The headline screamed SEXY ASSOCIATE SURVIVES BIZARRE DEATH RITUAL! I laid my head down on the table next to the laptop and moaned.

  A knock at the door brought my head up like a gazelle that had heard a lion cough. Stiff legged, my gut shivering like Jell-O, I approached the door. I pictured ravening claws and slavering jaws.

  Don’t be an idiot. Killers don’t normally knock.

  My voice quavered as I called, “Who is it?”

  “Linnet, dear heart, it’s all right.” Meredith Bainbridge’s reedy voice was muffled by the door, but unmistakable.

  I threw it open and fell into his cold but welcome embrace. After the initial hug, he pushed an embroidered handkerchief into my hands and escorted me back inside the apartment. He removed his wraparound sunglasses and wide-brimmed panama hat. Placing firm but gentle hands on my shoulders, he sat me down on the sofa.